Designing a desktop alternative in Milan

A group of Italian researchers, led by Giorgio De Michelis, is developing a new "design-driven" way of organizing the contents of a PC, covering both the hardware and the software.

The project - named Itsme - is run by a spinoff of the Bicocca University, which has the sole objective of designing a radically new personal computer concept that is able to easily handle the vast amounts of information and relations, that current desktops and laptops have difficulties with.

The team involved wants to replace the desktop and folder metaphor, as it is not capable of managing the complexity of relations and interconnected histories, with a new one based on the concept of stories and venues.

A first prototype with an easy-to-use interface based on this metaphor will be launched in 2010 and first concepts and ideas will be discussed at the upcoming SMAU technology fair in Milan (15 to 18 October).

Mark Vanderbeeken is a senior partner at Experientia, an international experience design consultancy, based in Turin, Italy. He is also the author of the successful experience design blog Putting People First. Mark is a specialist in visioning, identity development and strategic communications and worked in Italy, Denmark, the USA and...

John Thackara published an essay on Adobe Design Center Think Tank on what is to stop us moving less, and telecommunicating more.But "telepresence [as implemented up till now] sucks". Thackara claims that "it's an insult that telecoms should expect us to meet in hideous sterile rooms in front of huge...

Lifestraw--the cigar-sized personal point-of-use water filtration device produced by Vestergaard Frandsen--has captured the imagination of everyone who's seen it, and now it has a Family System counterpart that provides 15,000 liters of clean drinking water to one household. What's more, core-fave Project H Design, an organization founded by Emily Pilloton...

Something out of Worth1000, this sawed-off USB drive is the kind of thing you'd make two of "while you're at it"--giving one as a gift and keeping the other for yourself. We Wanty! via lifehacker / Evil Mad Scientist